


Poorly Advised

by KokoScripsit



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Historical Hetalia, Short One Shot, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-08 18:31:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15935930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KokoScripsit/pseuds/KokoScripsit
Summary: The year is 1997. Albania is on the brink of disaster, with a sudden financial crisis threatening to turn into a full-fledged civil war. As the other nations of Europe try to stabilize the situation, the spirit of South Italy seeks out his cousin in order to find out a little more about what exactly went wrong.





	Poorly Advised

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first historical fic I've posted here, and my first fic to feature my Albania OC. The relationships among the characters are derived from history... but it'll take a lot of historical stories to explain _why_ they interact the way they do, so perhaps I should post more of that later. As for this one, I'm considering whether or not to write more fics about this particular historical event; if I end up doing so, the obvious name for the series would be “Operation Alba.” (For anyone who may want to learn more about the context, that's a good name to look up.)

_Tirana, Albania  
April 1997_

Deep in one of the many identical concrete apartment blocks, Lovino Vargas knocked on a door that looked an awful lot like all the others. It wasn't often that the spirit of South Italy involved himself with international matters—in most cases that was his brother's domain—but Lovino had been representing Italy as a whole to Albania for the past fifty years, and anyway his brother was busy coordinating troops from eleven different countries, so it fell to him to see what was happening in the unremarkable apartment where the spirit they had come to help lived. From within, he faintly heard a hoarse voice call, “Ejani, nëse ju duhet!” Taking that as an invitation, he tried the door, which opened for him without resistance.

A pained moan issued from somewhere in the apartment, and Lovino followed the sound to the bathroom, where he found his cousin Era Kastrati, the spirit of Albania, curled up on the floor. She was pale and sweaty, her short hair dark and plastered to her head and neck, wearing a very loose red dress, and clutching her stomach.

“What happened, cugina?” Lovino asked. Obviously she was sick—he had known that since February—but he still wanted to know what her side of the matter looked like.

“Something I drank,” she gasped. “Mr. Berisha said it was a health potion—Mr. Camdessus said it was poison—I guess I've found out who was ri—” She cut herself off, apparently involuntarily, with retching, and Lovino grimaced.

“So you drank...?” he asked.

“I swallowed a _pyramid scheme,_ ” Era managed. Even in her weakened state, she was plainly furious. “Because my boss told me to. Never doing that again.” And then the sickness overtook her again and she turned very quickly to the toilet.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Translations and Context Notes**  
>  _Ejani, nëse ju duhet_ \- Albanian for “Come in, if you must.”  
>  _Cugina_ \- Italian for “(female) cousin.” Lovino tends to address Era as “cugina” or “kushërirë” (which means the same, but in Albanian) and she responds in kind by calling him “cugino” or “kushëri” (the same words he uses for her, but masculine). Feliciano typically only calls her “cugina,” because his Albanian isn't nearly as good as his brother's (because there is an Albanian-speaking community in the south of Italy, but the language is essentially nonexistent in the north), but Era often calls him “kushëri” anyway.  
>  Mr. Berisha - Sali Berisha, then-President of Albania, encouraged Albanians to invest in a category of investments that turned out to be scams, resulting in a substantial portion of the population losing everything they owned. Somehow he ended up making a comeback to politics in spite of that, and became Prime Minister eight years later.  
> Mr. Camdessus - Michel Camdessus was the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund at the time. The organization released a warning that the “investments” championed by President Berisha were in fact scams, but this warning was publicly contradicted by President Berisha. There were also people within Albania who tried to get out similar warnings, but Berisha actively worked to discredit them.


End file.
